Jessica used to work with a friend making cakes.
You can find cakes that pretty much everyone should be embarrased by at this awesome (new to me) blog:
I want you to know that even my most recent attempt at making Jessica’s birthday cake was better than many of the examples here.
Nadia Elizabeth
Originally uploaded by RandyPeterman.
This would be a picture of my new niece. She’s pretty awesome. I’m rather excited to get to be around her, spend time with her, and be an uncle to her. All is going well with her (from what I know) and she should be leaving the hospital with her mom & pop tomorrow. Awesomeness.
Jeremy Doan, a pal, brother in Christ, and great photographer has also posted some pictures on his blog: here.
chicago_creek_panorama
Originally uploaded by RandyPeterman.
We went camping this weekend at Chicago Creek campgrounds up near Mt. Evans in the Colorado Rockies. Great fun was had by mostly all (some of the kids had a harder time due to lack of naps, constant social engagement, and smores). I took some pictures, but not as many as I’d have liked, but duty called. Mr. Doan also took some pictures and once he posts some I’ll link over his way, too. I’ve got more to post as well, but this first batch should be good for at least a day or two.
James tagged me in an interweb chain letter. The last person who didn’t comply with the chain letter lived into their 100’s, and I don’t need that. Here are my answers:
I was preparing to get married while I worked at a Christian Bookstore called The Manger. I was in Junior College, and I was pretty much ready to explode with emotions and hormones – and I wasn’t even a teenager. I was the music department manager at the Christian bookstore, which was kinda cool, except that I would get advanced releases and by the time the customer would get the album to listen to, I was burned out on it. They’d say, “What do you think of this album?” I had to think about what I used to think about that album before it was old – even though it was brand new. I also coudln’t get over the 60+ year old customers who would buy two of every gaither album, one for themselves to cry to at home, and one to send to their friend, relative or minister so that they could all be emotional together with the sweet gospel songs that they remembered from their youth.
Getting married was a major, major task, but I’ve written about that before. Also, junior college was shelved to a certain degree and I took the lightest full load conceived of. I took pottery with Jessica as one of my three classes. Turns out it was one of the cooler classes I took that was outside of the history courses I took.
[I’m so totally going to get in trouble for some of these, and probably also for not asking you, instead of one of these people above]
By adding the fans into the girls rooms it appears, after a short run, that they’re sleeping much better and are actually sleeping in. I actually woke up a little worried that I’d slept past the normal start of my work day this morning because the girls hadn’t gotten me up. Furtunately it was only 6:58 or so 🙂
Here’s hoping that this keeps up and they get restful sleep.
With what can only be described as miraculousness, and a significant amount of help from others, the fence is 85% done. I have to put the slats up, but that’s quick work because most of the slats already have screws in them (they’ll be recycled) and the help of my brother-in-law (and sister) has been most appreciated. If all goes well tomorrow I’ll be able to post a picture that will be far from artistic, but at least will show that I can complete a project around the house.
I foolishly lugged 700 pounds of wood and concrete across Lowe’s on Saturday while feeling under the weather, but at least when it was all said and done I got some exercise and I had most of the materials I needed. It turned out that some of my materials recycling was a fail because the nails in the wood splintered upon attempting to remove them. So I had to spend another $60.00 on cross-beams. They were not optional, but they did help me have a fence, so I don’t have to look at my neighbor’s back yard and wonder why they have so many kids toys without ever using them (there are kids there… just not regularly playing in the back yard… Wii? X-box? PS2? PS3? PS, I love you).
Every time I try to repair my fence in the back yard I begin to feel ill. This morning, the day to re-begin the project, I woke up feeling icky. I blame the the Lemurs.
I began the ribs for Father’s Day dinner. They will be absorbing wonderful flavor from the rub* for over 24 hours and then Saturday they will start the cooking process. They’ll be smoked with pecan chips. Which is to say that the ribs will be smoked until just shy of temperature and then finished on Sunday afternoon to make sure that they’re still moist and yet pass FDA requirements for human consumption. We’ll be heating for dinner in an apple juice/jack daniels bath, which adds even more flavor. Yummy! I’ve yet to determine whether we’ll be having the espresso barbecue sauce, or some other sauce. We might even depart from the norm and offer two sauces. It will be father’s day of course, which means that we’ll be making other tasty treats, but I don’t have a final menu off the top of my head.
* For those of you who live in or visit Texas, I got the base rub recipe from the guys who cater the company barbecue events and its just awesome of them to share. Email me and I’ll get you the recipe. If you’re not part of the inner sanctum, I cannot share, sorry 🙂
Warning: this post contains lots of non sequiturs, I’m tired, and non sequiturs make me chuckle when I’m tired. I’d ask if you follow what I”m saying except that that’s what a non sequitur is. Elephants wander through the African planes and such.
Both girls have been in a mild to extreme melt-down mode since coming home from Indiana. I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that Jessica and I have also been in punt mode. We’ve had a lot going on and when that happens we end up punting a lot. If you’re not familiar with the punt analogy it ties in with the popular American sport called American Football. Its called American Football because the rest of the world calls it American Football because they had a sport called football long before the Americans who took Rugby, Football, Sumo Wrestling and the Civil War and combined them together so that only very fast, large men (and now, apparently fast, large women) can mash into one another like two over-loaded sports cars while one smaller, but still huge man attempts to throw the ball to another smaller, not as huge man who runs even faster than the other fast runners in an attempt to not be killed by oncoming fast, large men. This is, in short, American Football.
In American Football there’s a really nice thing that happens: the teams share the ball and take turns having ‘possession’ of the ball. Possession is a loose term because each team could find themselves running with the ball, in fear of being creamed by the other team, lose the ball and then do what’s called fumbling the ball and then recovering the dropped ball, which means that they might still have possession even though they temporarily did not have possession. After enough time lapses where the team who had possession didn’t do anything useful with the ball, they might have what’s called a fourth down. The fourth down follows the first through third down. The number of downs you have depends on the number of severely injured fowl you have as well as fouls that may have been committed by players added together with the number of yards the football has traveled in a subjectively positive direction. Upon the fourth down, if the team who has possession of the ball decides that they’re too close to the scoring end-zone of the opposing team they can do what’s called punting. Punting is to kick the ball to the other end of the field but not into the scoring end-zone, just up close to it. The returning, opposing team then catches the ball and the player who catches the ball hopefully runs a long, long way so that they get back closer to the original end-zone so that they can get a touchdown. A touchdown has nothing to do with the downs mentioned earlier. So the punt is a scrambled maneuver that is only done to prevent the other team from scoring and is generally looked at as a last resort maneuver.
Since Jessica and I have been resorting to the punt for the last couple weeks due to some unforeseen circumstances, work, and a general sense of being whelmed (not over or under, but relatively pegged) the girls have probably felt like the football being kicked from one end of the field as we play American Football with each day. This is why Evelyn threw a screaming temper tantrum as we were entering the fine Costco store this evening to collect small, specific bits of food for Father’s Day this weekend. Food that will keep us going in our punting, punting that will keep us from scoring, but keep the other team from scoring. Scoring which makes us like John Williams, who does not play American Football.